Spring Training Sessions

Check out our bi-weekly online training sessions happening this spring every second Wednesday at 10am Pacific / 11am Mountain / 12pm Central. We also have some in-person workshops happening at campus' across western Canada including our Research Computing Summer Schools which will be at UBC and the University of Alberta this year. CLICK HERE for more details and to RSVP.

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WestGrid Computing Facilities

Introduction

WestGrid's computing facilities are part of Compute Canada's national platform of Advanced Research Computing resources. The Compute Canada computing facilities are distributed among several resource provider sites and connected by high-performance networks so that users can access the system which best fits their needs, regardless of where it is physically located. The systems are for high performance computing, so they are something beyond what you would find on a desktop.

Which system should you use?

Use the system which best fits your needs, not necessarily the one closest to you.

National Sites

Compute Canada's new national sites offer expandable and modern data centres with highly qualified personnel. Operations of the new systems are delivered through national teams, drawing upon regional and local expertise distributed across Canada.

IMPORTANT NOTE: After March 31, 2019 this system will no longer be supported by WestGrid / Compute Canada. The University of British Columbia has generously offered to continue operating this system for opportunistic use by existing WestGrid users only. No new accounts will be created or new software installed. Priority access will be given to researchers located at or collaborating with the University of British Columbia. Support and maintenance of this system will be provided on a best efforts basis only. Users should ensure all important data is backed-up on another system. Please contact arc.support@ubc.ca for more information or refer to WestGrid’s Migration Process page for more help.

Phase 1: 384 nodes, 3072 cores

8 cores/node

Xeon E5450 3.0GHz

16 GB Ram

DDR IB

Phase 2: 554 nodes, 6528 cores

12 cores/node

Xeon X5650 2.66 GHz

QDR IB

IB with 2:1 blocking factor

Phase 1 and Phase 2 share filesystems but otherwise run as separate systems

Defunded Systems

***NOTE: On September 1, 2017, Breezy was withdrawn from general WestGrid service. It is now available only to approved University of Calgary-based projects. This is part of a continuing process for handling the retirement of WestGrid systems. Please visit the Migration Process page for more information. Questions regarding Breezy should now be directed to support@hpc.ucalgary.ca, rather than support@westgrid.ca.

***NOTE: On September 1, 2017, Lattice was withdrawn from general WestGrid service. It is now available only to approved University of Calgary-based projects. Questions regarding Lattice should now be directed to support@hpc.ucalgary.ca, rather than support@westgrid.ca.

Retired WestGrid Systems

Some older WestGrid systems have been removed from general service, typically being replaced with more energy-efficient machines with more capability.

Machine name

Period of Service

Description

Silo

Dec. 2008 - Mar. 2017

Silo was the primary storage facility at WestGrid with over 3.15 PB (3150 TB) of spinning disk. It was an archival facility, which was backed up. There were two main login servers: Silo and Hopper. Silo and Hopper shared filesystems.